Ever since I began work on a game seriously, I began to invest time networking on Twitter and a few other social media outlets with other game developers across the globe. Whether this was a simple follow, or taking a few minutes to scroll down their feeds and learn something, I almost unanimously felt underwhelmed or uninspired by most of what I came across.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like most independent developers harp on a few key things. Just to list them off I would conclude they are casual games, mobile (casual) games, shmups (shoot-em-ups), and platformers. I would dare to say well over 75% of the games and development studios I stumble across don’t venture beyond these conventions. Perhaps for some variety, many of these mention the inclusion of “rogue-like elements”, a term excruciatingly loosely tossed around that more often than not is condensed into plain RNG in gameplay.
I haven’t released a commercial game, so who am I to judge. I’m just disappointed that a majority of the independent community does not dare to explore unconventional gameplay and ideas. I’m not even talking about the rule books here; if you want to make a unique and exciting platformer, then go ahead! I’m upset because I haven’t found this. Maybe I haven’t found it yet. Maybe I missed it. But the uniqueness, the ambition, the heart of a game beyond cloning metroidvania or mario, I just don’t feel it or see it while networking with indies.
Jake, you raise an interesting point and I think the fact of the matter is that there is a large number of independent game designers out there right now who are just trying to ride the wave of success of casual mobile gaming. So many of these games have taken off in the past several years that people are entering this market just trying to make a quick buck rather than trying to design a super unique game that is less likely to succeed.
It takes a little more motivation and a lot more risk and creativity to go out and build a uniquely unconventional game. Unfortunately for most people designing these games, they tend to fall flat. Unless you are a huge studio who can ripoff another game and make it a little better or you have something unique about your game, chances are there won’t be too much of an audience for it. I definitely agree that independent developers are also constrained by their time and budgets, but I still think the gaming world would be a more interesting if people tried to push out more innovative, crazy games that might fail but are at least different than what’s out there.
I was having a discussion with someone the other day about how a lot of the indie games basically just play the same way, just adding a new skin. There are a few reasons I think this is the case. First off, these types of games have been proven to be the the most successful at the time, and so why not create a game that you know people will like the gameplay of, instead of taking a risk. Another reason has to do with the time these indie developers have. They don’t have a large budget, or a large team, so they need to spend a lot of time on their games and not expect a large income from them. Because of this, they are more inclined to put out a game that works rather, than take the risk of having a game that is broken, and not enjoyable to play.
I agree that most indie games play it safe. However, the ones that caught my attention did, not because they had unique mechanics, but because of their story lines. It’s no secret that indie developers don’t always have a budget that could support hiring or acquiring the necessary software to produce unique mechanics, so they have to make up for it in some way.
There was a game that I watch the play through for called, “Kholat”, which was a horror game about some kids that got lost in the mountain. While there was not much to do but explore, it was a fascinating game that captivated you and was enjoyable. But, again, if you can’t do amazing mechanics, you can make up for it in storylines.
Yeah, I see where you are coming from with this post. I’m disappointed as well in the lack of ambition when making games. I think it has to do with the fact that developers just want to make their money and run. Also its getting harder and harder to be creative and come up with a new concept for a game.
I think the reason why there is so many copycats is because you are already taking risks as an indie developer. If someone sees something that is successful, more than likely someone will take that idea and improve on it rather than coming up with something that is completely new. Why should I take a risk if I can just use something that was already successful. I’m not saying that I like all the copycats, but I’m just trying to understand the developers thought processes.
This happened a lot with DayZ and minecraft. Both of these games were successful at the beginning. Fortunately, no one made anything better than minecraft, so they were able to stay at the top. DayZ had too many problems. I really liked they idea they had with permadeath. However, there were to many bugs in the beta. Someone then took something from that and made a better game H1z1. This featured similar mechanics and was less buggy. Now it is a lot more successful and more and more people are trying to come up with similar ideas rather than coming up with something new.